Technical Field
The invention relates generally to an integrated circuit (IC), and more particularly to a panel driver IC and a cooling method thereof.
Description of Related Art
In a conventional panel driver integrated circuit, the level shifter and the output buffer are the main cause for the internal temperature to rise. As more output bits of the level shifter change states, the level shifter generate more heat, and accordingly the temperature of the converter increases. For example, the heat generated when the digital data outputted by the level shifter changes from 00000000 to 11111111 (i.e. 255) is bound to be far greater than the heat generated when 00000000 changes to 00000001.
As for the output buffer, when the output voltage swing is too wide, the output buffer generates excess heat and causes the buffer temperature to be too high. For example, the heat generated when the analog voltage of the output buffer changes from the lowest grayscale voltage (e.g. V(0)) to the highest grayscale voltage (e.g. V(255)) is bound to be far greater than the heat generated when the grayscale voltage V(0) changes to the grayscale voltage V(1).
Accordingly, when the pixel data transitions from 00000000 to 11111111, both the level shifter and the output buffer generate high temperate simultaneously and cause the chip temperature to rise drastically. The chip temperature increase alters the circuit characteristics and lowers the reliability.